Memento Mori
by insertappropropriatenamehere
Summary: A year after the death of the Demon Emperor, the ones who knew him gather to share their stories, experiences, and opinions of the man and in the process understand the meaning of his death.


AN: The ending's a bit odd. I originally planned for something very different. Everything was supposed to be tied up at the end, not left open. And before you ask, this was originally intended to be a one-shot. Now, I'm not so sure.

Summary: A year after the death of the Demon Emperor, the ones who knew him gather to share their stories, experiences, and opinions of the man and in the process understand the meaning of his death.

Disclaimer: I do not own Code Geass. If I had, Lelouch wouldn't have been the only one to die.

XxXxX

Memento Mori: Remember the Dead

XxXxX

_I want to create a kind world. _

_-Lelouch vi Britannia_

XxXxX

The room looked perfectly ordinary, just like every other room in the house. White plastered walls with no decoration, white lighting set up in the ceiling, a single door, comfortable couches placed at inviting locations and angles on the polished hardwood floor. Folding chairs rested against the walls and a small coffee table held a pitcher of water and a few cups. However, this room was soon to host some of the most important people in the world. And it would commemorate the man who made those people important.

The first to enter were two girls, one with long black hair and the other silver hair of varied length. They were followed by a man with long hair tied in a ponytail. All of them carried flowers.

"The shrine's there," Kaguya pointed to the single small stand on the opposite side, where a single picture rested, framed by a pair of gently smoking incense holders. They laid their flowers in front of the stand and sat down. Soon the door opened again and several men wearing black uniforms came. They too laid their bouquets down on the floor in front of the shrine and sat down.

"Ohgi's coming soon," one of them, wearing a red headband holding up hair that had been gelled stiff, said. "So are the rest of us from the Black Knights. Ohgi and Villetta are just dealing with the baby."

"I hope they bring her here," Tianzi said. "He would probably want to see her."

"Yes." Any further conversation was cut off when the door opened and a girl with red, spiked hair wearing a school uniform and the key to a Knightmare Frame around her neck walked in. She was followed by another one, this one with short honey-colored hair. A few seconds later, a quiet girl with dark green hair in twin braids and large round glasses walked in.

"Hello, Kallen. Who's the other and why is she carrying a bouquet of orchids?"

"I'm Milly Ashford," the blond girl said, bowing. "I think he would have wanted something colorful. You know he didn't like being gloomy."

"He was a gloomy person," Kallen retorted, taking the bouquet from Milly and putting it down.

"Excuse me, but you're blocking the doorway." Milly moved and a man with short blue hair, orange eyes, and a facemask entered, followed by a girl with pink pigtails and a man with blond hair and three small braids.

"What are the remaining Knights of Rounds doing here?" Kallen asked. In response, all three held up bouquets. Jeremiah also held up a basket of oranges.

"This is his requiem, remember?"

"Yes," a fourth voice said.

"Ah, Ohgi-san!" Kaguya said. "Villeta-san!" The baby squalled before settling.

"I think we need to start unfolding the chairs," Villetta said, putting three bouquets down in front of the shrine.

Kallen jumped up. "Sit down, Villetta. Don't overstrain yourself. Did you come straight from the hospital?"

Villetta smiled sheepishly and everyone in the room sighed. "You're still the same as before," Jeremiah said.

As if Villetta and Ohgi's arrival touched off a stampede, a steady stream of people entered, each of them carrying bouquets, until the room was so crowded that people were sitting on the backs of the couches and on the coffee table and the shrine was smothered under a flood of flowers, ribbon, and plastic wrapping. The scent of incense battled with the scent of the flowers and of too many people cooped up in a small room.

Finally, the door opened for the final time. A girl rolled in, her wheelchair guided by a man wearing an elaborate masked costume. They were followed by a blond man with a slightly vacant expression and a woman with vibrant purple hair and a frown.

"These were onii-sama's favorite flowers," Nunnally vi Britannia, the benevolent 100th Empress of the Britannian Empire, announced, holding up her bouquet. The four passed over their flowers, which wound their way through the room and were placed on top of the others.

"Your Majesty," the room said. No one moved; there wasn't much room to. Schneizel made to close the door, but it was slammed back open in his face.

"Don't forget me," C.C. said, shoving her bouquet in his face.

"Sakura?" Nunnally asked, fingering the delicate pink flowers. "Did you take them from the trees outside?"

C.C.'s scowl gave all the answer they needed. "Let me in." She jumped, launched off Schneizel's shoulder, and balanced herself on the back of one of the folding chairs. The bouquet floated down and knocked the picture over. Chiba, who was closest, sighed and righted the frame. "You should have chosen a bigger room."

Kaguya shrugged. "This was the location where we could get everyone," she explained. "And it was either in here or the garden. I think we'll need privacy; the world probably wouldn't appreciate what we're doing."

Schneizel closed the door. "Let us observe a minute of silence," Zero announced, sounding as impressive and unruffled as if he didn't stand inside a stifling room.

The silence stretched a minute, ten, half an hour, then longer as the people in the room remembered their interactions with a man who at best had been an enigma.

"The Zero Requiem," Kallen said suddenly into the silence. "What was it, Zero?"

Suzaku did not answer, but his hands tightened on the handles of Nunnally's wheelchair.

"He was such an idiot at the end," Ohgi whispered. "You'd think he _wanted_ to be killed."

There was another, frozen silence as people considered his words.

"Kami-sama," Villetta whispered. "He _did._ Why, though? He had to know that we were waiting for him. It was so unlike him. He, who took care of his life above all else. Why was he in Japan, when she was still rebelling? It was so unlike him."

"That's the secret of the Zero Requiem, isn't it?" Nunnally asked sadly. "Zero."

"Yes."

"Who are you, Zero?" Kallen asked harshly. Her sentiments were echoed throughout the room; everyone present knew that Lelouch had been the original.

"I am Zero. Is that not his wish?"

"Don't give us that crap," Tōdō snapped. "Who are you?!"

"Yeah, who?" C.C. asked sarcastically.

"I- am Zero," Suzaku insisted. There was a pregnant pause. "Uh-oh," he squeaked as he was jumped by well over fifty people, most of them wearing black uniforms.

"Schneizel!" he squeaked from his position under the heavy dogpile. "I can't breathe!"

"Him too!" Kallen directed, jumping Schneizel. Suzaku struggled to extricate himself from under the people as said people began grabbing as his mask.

Someone- a redhead with gelled hair, he noticed- had decided to grab the mask's spikes and was engaged in trying to pull it off by force. Unfortunately, the mask had been designed so that the opening was smaller than the circumference of his head, specifically for this type of circumstance. Suzaku gasped for air, gritting his teeth as the front edge of the mask dug into his trachea and the back end cut into the base of the skull. He heard his neck vertebrae pop as his body slowly became numb and cursed Lelouch for designing such a dangerous prop.

"Um, I think you're overdoing it," Nunnally said nervously as Suzaku's gasps were amplified by his voice changer. Speaking of voice changers, Suzaku felt something in the mask crunch and break under the pressure before something slammed into his body with the force of one of Lancelot's Hadron beams and everything went dark.

When he woke up again, it was without his mask but with a nice ache in his bones.

"Your voice changer broke and electrocuted everybody," Lakshata said dryly. She and Lloyd left as Ohgi entered. Villetta sat on another couch and hummed softly to her baby. "But you, most of all. Everyone else is in the garden; Schneizel and Cornelia are taking care of Nunnally. Sayoko made sure you weren't dead and took care of you. That's going to form an impressive scar on your neck, you know."

Suzaku moaned in response, touching the bandage just under his chin, and craned his head, his eyes staring into unseeing purple ones. "I somehow blame him for this."

"He was a great man," Ohgi said emotionlessly.

Suzaku winced. "You found out?"

"Everything," Villetta said. The baby hiccupped. "Jeremiah and Schneizel, probably fearing for their lives, became quite eloquent on the subject."

"And?"

"We're of mixed feelings," Villetta admitted. "I don't know if we want to worship him because of his sacrifice or condemn him because he kept something of this magnitude from us."

"Here," Ohgi said, handing Suzaku his mask. "Just don't speak. In any case, your appearance as Zero hit Tōdō hard."

"I'm sorry." He meant it, too. "But it was the only way…." He trailed off.

"Come on," Villetta said, extending her hand. "Everyone's already come to terms; you were out for quite a while. Let's fulfill Zero- no, _Lelouch's_- final wishes."

As they left, Zero cast one last look at the picture surrounded by flowers. _'Goodbye, Lelouch.'_

XxXxX

In the World of C, the man in question smiled at the scene.

"They finally all moved on," a woman with long auburn hair smiled. "I'm glad, Lulu."

"Don't call me that," he responded. "I guess everything's done with."

"Yes," an adolescent with long pink hair smiled, standing next to a more serious boy with violet eyes and short-cropped sandy hair. "It is, onii-sama."

"Euphie," he said, tilting his head up to stare at Jupiter. "It's time for us to move on, too."

"Yes."

And so, the name and tale of the Demon Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia, once known as the beloved Emperor of Justice and the vigilante Zero, moved on and took its place in history.

XxXxX

Owari

XxXxX

Epilogue:

Five hundred years later, five hundred and one years after the death of the Demon Emperor, children laughed and played in the kind, caring world that had been brought about with violence, bloodshed, and callousness, testament to the power of a single person to determine the course of history. The one in the lead turned and shouted, "Come on!" as they raced ahead into the future.

Humans are masks made by the collective unconsciousness, sometimes known as God. However, that does not stop people from becoming distinct individuals. C.C. watched at the racing figures from a distance, fingering the Geass symbol on her forehead. The straggler of the group turned around, purple eyes under a heavy fringe of black hair meeting hers in quiet, sardonic acknowledgment before he turned around and chased after his peers, once more just another child.

"Welcome back."


End file.
